


Things Have Changed

by cecilkirk, servecobwebheadaches



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, Canon, Fake Dating, M/M, Ryden
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:50:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6262960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilkirk/pseuds/cecilkirk, https://archiveofourown.org/users/servecobwebheadaches/pseuds/servecobwebheadaches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Pete dares Brendon to date Ryan.<br/>In which Ryan falls completely in love.<br/>In which Brendon realizes he's in too deep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Brendon should have known nothing good could come out of an evening spurred along by alcohol.

"I mean..." Pete shrugged, hiding a grin with a smirk. " _If_ you make it big. If."

Brendon rolled his eyes, knocking back the rest of the can. He was grateful Pete's apartment was dark. He wouldn't be able to see the blush growing across Brendon's cheeks at the invitation. 

"That's rude," he offers, trying to paint it with reality. "That's playing with his emotions."

"So what?" Pete asks. He sets the empty can down by his feet, then curls his legs up onto the couch. "It's a thousand dollars. Are you afraid he'll actually feel something? Or--" he laughs, grinning widely as the thought strikes him, and Brendon can't help but grimace. "Or are you afraid  _you_ 'll feel something?"

Brendon's eyes fall to the invisible spot he decides to pluck off his jeans. "No," he says, voice louder than he intended. "It's just--it's rude to toy with people."

Pete scoffs. "Like you're so morally upright."

"Speak for yourself," Brendon says reflexively.

Both hold a gaze across the living room that could have easily fallen into irascibility, but their relationship is too taut. Instead, it erupts in stupid grins and ugly, genuine laughter.

"Do you really think we could make it?" Brendon asks, breaking the silence into something serious again.

Pete shrugs briefly to indicate his own response's gravity. "Yeah, I think so. You've got something really special. Some real chemistry."

Again, Brendon rolls his eyes. Again, Brendon is grateful for the lack of light.

"I'm serious," Pete says. "You and Ryan--all you guys, really--you have something that could be great. That's why I signed you on."

"So what's the point of this bet, then?" Brendon asks. "Some kind of belated revenge for Ryan forcing you to hear our stuff through cyber bullying?"

Pete grins easily at the memory, shaking his head slowly. "Nah. Just..." He shrugs again, slowly, languidly. "Kind of want to see how he reacts. The kid's an enigma, but I think he's more of a puzzle than a riddle."

"Is that a dig at Ryan's lyric writing?" Brendon asks through a smile.

"No," Pete says, looking down at his nails. "I think he's pretty easy to break."

Brendon blinks at this. The weight of it pushes down the corners of his smile.

"You want me to break him?" he asks quietly.

"No, no," Pete says hurriedly, shaking an outward-facing palm as affirmation. "I just...it'd be interesting to see if he thinks you're being serious or not. If he catches on, or if his heart is pliable enough to lead him down that path."

Brendon puts his thumb nail between his teeth, saying nothing for a moment. "That's kind of cruel."

"I'm not making you do it. But aren't you curious?" Pete asks, dropping his voice to convey the sincerity of his words. 

Brendon thinks a million things, but he says nothing.

"It's just if you make it," Pete offers. "If you get to headline your own tour, let's say. If not, then no harm, no foul--don't do anything with him. But--"

"Do you think I owe you, or something?" Brendon asks, voice grating in his own ears. 

Again, Pete shrugs. Brendon feels bitterness collect in his fingertips. He can feel them curl into fists.

But he lets them relax, unfurl, lay flat and motionless.

He did owe Pete.

Brendon sucks on his lower lip, not meeting Pete's eyes. "Fine."

"What?" Pete begins to chide. "I didn't quite--"

"I said 'fine,'" Brendon spits. "I'll do it.

Pete claps his hands together, grinning brightly. It's almost enough to illuminate the room. Brendon feels bitterness stain his insides and color his thoughts dark and gray. But he waves it away because it wasn't going to mean anything, because Ryan would never fall for it, because Brendon could never play the part well enough to be convincing.

He was sure of it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guilt was all that consumed Brendon.

Brendon didn't know how to feel.

He kept telling himself that he was going to simply ask Ryan to be his boyfriend the next time he got the chance. Simply. Not let on that it wasn't going to mean anything at all in the end, not let on that someone else had pressured Brendon into doing it, not show any emotion other than the nerves he was supposed to feel when asking someone out.

The concept didn't seem so simple at all as it got tangled deeper in Brendon's feelings.

He was bitter, pissed off at Pete a bit for putting this idea, this dare, in Brendon's mind. Ryan was a comfortable thing in Brendon's life, nothing Brendon wanted to hurt. Brendon was worried that it wasn't a good time, because they were all stressed, still under pressure even though the album was complete. Brendon couldn't let things between him and Ryan go sour at a time like that. And Brendon was nervous, that emotion fluttering somewhere, deep beneath everything else. He couldn’t dwell on that too much, though, because—well, Ryan had crossed his mind before. The thought of, ‘maybe . . .’

That wasn't prominent. Brendon could ignore it when he wanted to, when he wasn't feeling lonely and in need of someone. Ryan was just that thought, that if he really wanted to, Ryan could be someone Brendon could have developed more-than-friends feelings for.

He ignored that even more, with this dare. It wasn't even that big of a deal in the first place. Just enough to make him a tad bit nervous to ask Ryan out.

A faux relationship with Ryan. Nothing real. Enough to please Pete.

Ryan might not even agree to date Brendon, when he asked. That made Brendon feel more nervous of what Pete would do at that point.

Another thing for Brendon to ignore.

He was going to be good and practiced at ignoring his feelings before asking Ryan out. He supposed it was better that way.

The whole band was back in Vegas after recording their first album. There was a lulling week of nothing when they got back home, and it was Brendon's time period to ask, to pursue—whatever. He wasn't really pursuing Ryan.

Brendon was laying in bed with the blinds closed, TV off, when he picked up his cell phone to call Ryan. He complained of being bored, and asked Ryan to go grab some food with him. Ryan accepted. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary for them.

They met at a cafe, but Brendon didn't really take in his surroundings much. He focused in on Ryan. Should he seem flirtatious? Ryan was so familiar, had become such a close friend, that Brendon couldn't control his actions to be different than normal.

Together, they talked, but didn't sit down—waiting in line for drinks. Brendon hated how normal it was, hated how he might ruin that, all with one question. “Ryan,” Brendon said, flatly, when there was a pause in conversation.

“Yeah?” Ryan asked, actually looking over at him.

“I . . .” Brendon looked down. He, fittingly, was embarrassed and nervous without trying. He hoped it was conveyed the right way. “Do you want to, um—will you go out with me? Like, as m-my boyfriend?”

Brendon felt nauseous, felt so immature. He looked up at Ryan, with a hopeful kind of grimace, asking again in just a facial expression.

Ryan's lips twitched upwards, not a full smile, but close enough.

“Yes,” Ryan said. “I will.”

Brendon let out a breath, laughed a bit. “Good, okay, yeah, thank you.”

Ryan looked amused, and merely went back to regular business.

Brendon sighed, horribly guilty inside. Ryan said yes, Ryan agreed, they were kind of officially dating. Fuck.

That meant Ryan had feelings for him, was willing to be romantic with Brendon—Brendon had been relying on Ryan saying no; it would be so much easier.

He should've been able to smile at Ryan, be cheerful. He felt only guilt.


	3. Chapter 3

Brendon faced a morning with heavy eyelids and blurred gaze. He had slept poorly last night, thoughts consuming him. New ones, too--strong and foreign enough to inundate him completely. For one split second--out of desperation, out of a need to relieve himself of the panic--he considers telling Pete how he feels, but deems it pointless. He would probably be apathetic to how hollow and constantly sick Brendon felt, how always on edge he was, how his thoughts were miles ahead of his words. He felt like he could never rest. He felt like he always needed to race to catch up with his lies.

It hadn't even been twenty-four hours, and Brendon was already exhausted.

Perhaps Brendon hadn't rubbed the sleep out of his eyes well enough that morning. Perhaps that would explain the blind spot that made his turning to Spencer seem like a good idea.

"It really happened, didn't it?" Spencer says, voice crackling through the phone. Distance wasn't so much a factor as walls and shitty phones were, but Brendon feels himself somehow inching away from the voice, even when he sits completely still on his couch.

"Um, yeah," Brendon says, his own voice thin and tenuous--a whole different kind of broken and distorted. "Yeah, I--yeah."

Spencer laughs at Brendon's response, mistaking it for the wrong shade of nervousness. "I think that's going to be great."

Brendon blinks; in hindsight, he knows he should have stopped responding, muttered an agreement, and hung up. But he didn't.

"Really?" he asks, the words small and soft.

"Yeah," Spencer says genuinely. "He really admires you."

Brendon swallows the knot in his throat down, where it sinks into the pit of his tumultuous stomach.

Hindsight _is_  20/20.

"I--really?" Brendon repeats. He breathes deeper, quicker, trying to force the pounding in his ears away.

"Really, Brendon," Spencer says. "I think--you know, he's pretty awkward and bossy, but he has a lot of heart. Maybe too much. Maybe that's why he writes for us--he feels everything so much deeper all the time. I think it's a release. Anyway," Spencer continues, and Brendon can almost see him shaking his head as he recollects his thoughts, "he's just really...I don't know. It's weird, you know? He kind of pours everything into one thing. Like, when he's caught up in something, he won't stop until it's done. Sometimes it's bad for him; passion makes him self-loathing sometimes."

Brendon blinks, mind faltering. "...Okay," he says finally, unsure of what to make of the information.

Realizing how he confused Brendon, Spencer says, "Just--he's still learning the perimeters of his heart, I think. He has an enormous capacity for beauty and joy and heartbreak."

"Yeah," Brendon says. He had to agree--Ryan was the kind of guy who was essentially a functional mess, stitching himself together while other corners were tearing. He didn't need someone to keep slicing him open. He might not be able to fix himself.

"Be good to him, Brendon," Spencer says evenly, voice becoming much more serious.

Brendon closes his eyes for a moment, fighting back the wave of nausea that threatens to pull him under.

"Y-yeah," he whispers, unable to speak around the tightness in his throat. "I will be."

Spencer's crackling voice is ended with the drone of the dialing tone. Brendon stares at his phone. He thinks about throwing it at the wall, as if all of his problems were trapped inside of it, as if it would release him from the guilt knotting his guts. Suddenly he sees it light up--a phone call from Pete.

Brendon takes a deep breath. He can feel his breath thick and wavering in his throat, ragged as it catches on whatever is trapped within. He considers not answering the call due to the now-impending threat of being sick, but he knows he can't. He's fucking blind. He doesn't know what he's doing anymore, why he's doing it, why it ever sounded appealing. But he stares at the hideous crack in the drywall, the few shirts that hang in his closet, the ratty sheets that cover his floor-bound mattress. He needs the money. 

Brendon accepts the call with electric hatred in his fingers and leaden sadness in his chest. He thinks he could sink through the floor, straight beneath the soil. He thinks he probably deserves it.

In, out; Brendon sucks in a breath, preparing himself. 

"Hey, Pete."


End file.
